Perfectly normal
by Lerry Hazel
Summary: Harry Potter doesn't even exist. Harry Evans is happily going to Stonewall High. Pre-Canon, obviously AU.  Full summary inside.
1. Preface

PREFACE

_**Title:**"Perfectly normal"_

_**Genre:** "What if"_

_**Timeline:** Pre-Canon and first chapters of Book One. _

_**Characters:** Harry & the Dursleys _

_**Summary:**_ __One would have to agree that if Dumbledore was indeed consciously aiming to shape Harry into self-sacrificing hero, he took a huge gamble. The risks involved have been thoughtfully explored in fanfiction. I have read countless "Harry saved from the Dursleys and raised by __insert name__" fics. There are also quite a few "Harry goes dark" ones, and even some where Harry's muggle family (or at least Petunia) redeem themselves by embracing magic. One of the latter was actually really, really good, so don't get me wrong, but… keeping a child in a cupboard makes one a bad guardian, – and shielding your ward from what had orphaned him in the first place is only reasonable. ___What I mean is so far I failed to find a story following what in my opinion should be the most probable scenario: **WHAT IF THE DURSLEYS, being decent people, RAISED HARRY LIKE THEIR OWN – THAT IS, "PERFECTLY NORMAL" AND WARE OF MAGIC? So, for all it's worth, I decided to write such story myself. Hope you'll enjoy at least the idea.**_

_**Warning**: Obviously AU, but just twisting, not contradicting canon so far._

_**Disclaimer**: Everything belongs to JKR, direct quotes especially so. I don't even particularly want any of it ;-)._

_**NB.**_ _I have to admit I was more interested in the situation itself than in the entourage, so there are a few details that I picked up from movies or even my own experience. Forgive me, if they seem out of place in early 1990s' Britain. _


	2. Prologue

"**PERFECTLY NORMAL"**

PROLOGUE

Mr. Vernon Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, would readily admit that having a small yet homely house, an unpretentious yet durable car, a not stunningly beautiful yet charming wife and a bit boring yet decently paid and perspective job he was quite content. In other words, Mr. Vernon Dursley was perfectly normal. Of course, if being absolutely honest, the same couldn't be said about Mrs. Dursley; but Mr. Dursley secretly prided himself of carrying on the mandatory romantics of their relationship by never prying into her past; well, except Googling the old mill she once mentioned as her father's workplace. Admittedly, Spinner's End seemed as proletarian as they go, so Vernon was but glad she preferred to spend family holidays with _his_ family and didn't bring him to _her_ family's gatherings she absolutely couldn't avoid. As for the rest, since Petunia Dursley née Evans had her meaningless degree in French literature, kept his house warm and welcoming and bore him a healthy son, as far as Mr. Dursley was concerned, she could refuse to open the door at Halloween, mumbling how nothing was funny about ghosts and witches roaming the world freely, all she wanted.

And so, on a totally ordinary morning, when he was finishing his usual coffee, ignoring the news programme trying to feed him some exaggerated sensation concerning abnormal activity of British owls, Mr. Dursley chose not to argue when his wife suddenly dropped her own cup, rushed to the phone and informed his office not to expect him due to family emergency.

* * *

><p>Mr. Dursley went to bed early, considerably unsettled by both the tricky parts of the new set of nursery furniture he failed to finish assembling and his random unsuccessful attempts to comfort his wife, who seemed to glue herself to sad but otherwise unremarkable news reports on an unexpected gas explosion killing thirteen people.<p>

It was past midnight when Vernon was woken by a cold hand clutching his upper arm and urgent desperate whisper "You know I love you, don't you?"

He nodded dutifully and shot a quick glance through half-closed curtains, trying to determine what was upsetting his wife so, but everything was quiet outside. Too quiet, actually. And too dark.

* * *

><p>Little by little the faint glow of street lights came back to life and the Dursleys drifted to exhausted sleep only to be jerked awake by a soft whimper. Mrs. Dursley rushed to the crib, where her son proved to be sleeping peacefully. But the whimpers not only didn't stop, but grew into a heartbreaking wail, which was obviously coming from the outside.<p>

Mr. Dursley went downstairs, closely followed by his wife, and carefully opened the front door, to be greeted by a sight from a nineteenth century sentimental novel: on his doorstep there was a basket containing a baby half strangled by his swaddles and sporting an ugly fresh wound in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead.

Without giving it much thought, Mrs. Dursley promptly picked up the screaming bundle, which immediately quieted, snuggling closely to human warmth, chocked out "Mummy" in a small broken voice and finally opened huge green eyes.

"Harry!" Mrs. Dursley exclaimed, growing even paler if it were even possible, "Lily! What have you done to her? Come back and talk to me, you pathetic freaks!" The last part was screamed desperately into the cold autumn night, and the baby started crying again. Petunia took a step back into the house and started whispering calming nonsense to the tiny ear, while blinking back her own tears.

Vernon settled on examining the basked more closely and finally produced an old-fashioned letter sealed with some pompous coat-of-arms, written in what seemed to be genuine ink and with such calligraphic precision as though the writer had been enjoying the process immensely:

'_Dear Mrs. Dursley, _

_we are sad to inform you that you sister, Mrs. Lily Evans-Potter passed away this night, following her husband, Mr. James Ch…'_

Vernon tore the letter in two, dropped it back in the basket and kicked the latter in a childish yet clear display of what he thought of whoever considered _this_ a proper way to break such news. Then he shut the door and gave his now silently crying wife a tender kiss, embracing her with one hand and reaching tentatively to stroke the child's fluffy dark hair with the other.


	3. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Of course, no one would admit it aloud, but the Dursleys of number four, Privet Drive were anything but normal. When worthy Mrs. Taylor finally reunited with her husband in – wherever prosperous brokers went after they died, – leaving the house (for the lack of closer relatives) to her great-niece's two children, the old gossip Kate Barnes of number seven was the first to announce the downfall of the respectable neighborhood; Mr. Cook, a widowed antiques shop owner of number two, an ex-cardiologist Dr. Hilda Marshall of number five and even the Millers, a pair of retired university professors of number six, silently agreed. Their worries were lessened for a while, when young Mr. Dursley, a heavy mustached man in his late twenties, turned out a family man and a zealous employee of Grunnings, who was still paying for his car and now had half of the house to buy from his sister, and thus little time to spare for socializing. His lanky and frankly quite plain wife dutifully invited every prying neighbour for tea, but volunteered little information except coming from Manchester and having met her husband at university; that is, until her pregnancy became visible and gave her a polite reason to cut the visits short.

The new Dursley offspring was by no means a quiet child, but one can't very well have a baby arrested for crying. Thankfully, after his first birthday he was beginning to chat more and wail less. But then, there was the boy.

He appeared overnight, as if delivered by a wayward stork. There were no rumors of adoption leaking from the officials, no social workers asking around. Privet Drive just slipped into its nightly routine to be woken the next morning by a piercing scream and the clatter of shattering glass. When the extremely displeased neighbours approached number four, that now lacked a few windowpanes, they were met by Mrs. Dursley holding a definitely not her own – dark-haired and green-eyed – toddler, who was screaming for his mother on the top of his lungs. The normally quiet and collected woman glanced over the visitors with her red-rimmed eyes, barked "What d'you want? He's just lost both his parents!" and slammed the door at the collective face of the indignant community.

* * *

><p>On the boys' first day at school it was cleared up that the second one was not even a Dursley after all. While undergoing the routine procedure of "telling the class something about yourself and your family" Harold Evans produced a surprisingly coherent story of how Lily Evans was his mom and there was no official record of her marriage to be found, and how she had died, so Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley were his family now, but Lily had loved him very much, so he had to keep the name to honour her memory at least until he was old enough to decide whether he wanted to change it or not.<p>

Later that year Harry and Dudley teamed up to dissuade their scandalized classmates from the existence of Father Christmas, pointing out the impossibility of visiting every child in the world in one night, as well as all the children that didn't even believe in Christ, and, for those who still doubted, the electric fireplace – and, therefore, the absence of a chimney – in their own house, to begin with. Miss Wilkins' attempt to salvage the Christmas spirit by explaining the inconsistencies through Father Christmas' magic was met by "Magic does not exist!" sang in a perfect unison.

A couple of years later a furious Vernon Dursley cornered Miss Wilkins in her office after classes and demanded his boys to be officially excused from a written assignment "What I would do if I were a wizard".

The Polkisses, who had eventually inherited Mrs. Barnes house, were probably still questioning their decision to stay in Little Whinging after they managed to bring a wizard's set as a present for the children when introducing themselves to their neighbours. Few minutes later Piers Polkiss was ecstatic, and the Dursley boys distinctly upset, as the colourfull ball which was supposed to be "vanished" seemed to have truly disappeared.

"Well, aren't we little magicians, are we", Mrs. Polkiss cooed. Mrs. Dursley instantly lost her ready-made welcoming smile, snatched the set from the kids and handed it back to her guests, informing then icily, that "her son was by no means a magician, and neither, hopefully, was her nephew".

* * *

><p>Indeed, the Dursleys seemed dead serious about "living in the real world". They owned every piece of electronics imaginable, and could run their house simply by pushing buttons, if they wanted to. They sent their children to every age-appropriate survival and first-aid training and never needed to be persuaded of the necessity of sex education and anti-terroristic drills. The bookcases in both nurseries spotted impressive collection of books meant to explain a child how the world worked without resorting to divine-interference theories.<p>

But still, strange things just tended to happen around the Dursley boys. Like when Harry had a chewing gum stuck in his fringe and cut most of it off, but looked as if nothing had happened the very next day (written off on Mrs. Dursley's corrective scissor-work and the boy's naturally messy locks); or when Miss Wilkins accused Dudley of coping Harry's work and her hair promptly turned bright blue (written off on new cheap hair dye, morning rain and bad ecology); or when Harry got caught in an old fishing net and spent about ten minutes at the bottom of the river (written off on everybody being worried and exaggerating); or when eight-year-old Dudley attacked Mount Davis, who shoved Harry too hard, and the huge upperclassman fell off the stairs but broke his fall mid-flight and landed gracelessly on his ass with only a few bruises right at the feet of passing head teacher; or when…

Ted the postman, who delivered a bunch of envelopes to number four, Privet Drive on July 6, 1991, chose not to question the presence of a large, tawny owl on the roof.


	4. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

It was a cool sunny morning and the only problem the Dursley family could possibly be facing was a pile of bills still scattered under the mail slot despite it being breakfast time.

"Will somebody get the mail?" Mr. Dursley grumbled, when his hand failed to reach his morning paper at its accustomed place.

His son produced an exaggerated whine of "Make Harry do it" and waved his fork in the direction of his cousin to empathize his point, dropping a piece of fried eggs on his own lap on the way.

"Make Dudley do it!" Harry retorted, aiming a precise slap at the bottom of the ketchup bottle, which caused half of its content to end in his plate.

"Boys," Mrs. Dursley murmured warningly. Both youngsters jumped and rushed to the hall, where Dudley picked up the letters while Harry went outside to collect the newspaper that had landed right in the middle of the flowerbed.

"Electricity, water, phone, 'Your house', 'Your garden', a postcard from Aunt Marge – ugly, isn't it, RBP sport camp – that's for me, library notification – that's for you, and… I guess that's for you as well," Dudley blinked stupidly at a letter proudly addresser to 'Mr. H.J. Potter, the Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey' in frivolous tinsel-green ink.

"Hurry up, boys! What are you doing there, checking for letter bombs?"

"Coming, Dad." As he headed obediently back to the kitchen, Dudley vaguely registered his cousin paused and shoved the mysterious letter as deep into his jeans pocket as possible.

"Here, Dad. See, I got into the summer training program. Aunt Marge's ill – ate a funny whelk. And Harry – "

Harry gave his cousin a warning glare and a kick at the shin for a good measure.

" – Harry only got a library notification. Again," Dudley finished lamely. "Seriously, Dad, what's he gonna do once I'm gone? Bet he won't even show his nose outside. It's just not right. Can't he go too, oh, not to RBP, obviously, he's pants at sports, they kicked him out of swimming team, for chrissake, but aren't there camps for nerds, or something? I mean – "

"Oh, come on, Big D," Harry interrupted, fairly certain by now no one would remember why the point was brought up at the first place, "you know I don't care for camps. And Aunt Petunia'll need help with the garden if we want to get the prize this year, so I'll get plenty of fresh air. By the way, Stonewall academy (1) did send me I mile-long least of what I have to read before even showing my face there."

* * *

><p>"You don't have to dig in the dirt all summer, you know," Dudley remarked in his rare spike of understanding, reaching for the last unwashed plate, "Mom won't think you're ungrateful or something."<p>

"Oh, must I always spell it for you, Dud? You can't wait to get away from your parents and make life of your own. Therefore you love summer camps and you're leaving for a boarding school. You made it to junior boxing team while still in primary school. Sport Camps want you. There are camps for nerds. They would admit me. But I don't want to go. I like reading. I like gardening. I even like cooking. And most of all, I like spending time with family: I had come to close to having none."

"I suppose, when you put it that way – " Dudley blushed and lowered his eyes for a moment. "Anyway, the letter with green ink, it wasn't from a nerd camp, was it?"

"No, that's actually some kind of prank. Look."

Dudley didn't bother with the tiny print surrounding the seal. Instead, he tore the envelope open and started reading aloud:

"'_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme __Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts __School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all __necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress.'_

Yeah, I see what you mean. Piers definitely went a long way from showing up for a sleep-over dressed in a cloak and pointed hat."

"Come on, let's get rid of it before your Mom finds out," Harry urged with fake carelessness choosing for now not to draw Dudley's attention to why the letter couldn't possibly have been written by Piers.

"Good idea. Hey, just look at us. My Mom goes spare every time as much as the word 'magic' is mentioned, my brother threw a tantrum over a green spotlight at the skating ring. I should probably convince Dad to take me to circus one day – one of us is bound to be afraid of clowns!"

* * *

><p>A couple of weeks later Harry was sitting on a broken swing in an abandoned corner of the park, not really reading one more mythology book that brought anything concerning magic in Great Britain to Merlin and didn't mention either Hogwarts, or Albus Dumbledore, or Minerva McGonagall at all. Instead, he was taking advantage of a little piece and quiet to run through his mental list of disturbing facts.<p>

The letters kept coming. Few days after they had disposed of the original one, Dudley found three more on the doorstep when leaving for his early Saturday training. Thankfully, he remembered to throw them away on his way to the gym without attracting attention. That very night Harry went to have a glass of water after he was woken in the middle of the night by one of those nightmares he kept having but could never recall and there were five letters right in the middle of the table. Then there were seven on his windowsill, ten on the rug near his bed and fifteen in the bathroom the boys shared.

Speaking of which, Dudley had approached the swings unnoticed and startled Harry by dropping about two dozen letters on his lap.

"Flew right into the living room," Dudley informed him, nodding at the jacket that was squirming viciously under his arm. "Lucky Mom's gone shopping. Who the hell wants to talk to you so badly?"

The jacket finally wormed its way from under Dudley's arm and fell open, releasing a disheveled and obviously displeased owl, which lazily flapped its wings a few times, positioned itself on the swing's horizontal bar and was showing no intention of leaving until – whatever was going through its avian brain.

"I've got a few ideas," Harry admitted heavily, "I just hope I'm wrong. Come here, look. What strikes your most about these letters?"

"They were delivered by a wild carnivorous bird?" Dudley retorted sarcastically, giving the owl a nasty look. "Well, they seem to be written in ink, actual ink, but, on the other hand… they are absolutely identical. Some kind of facsimile, probably. Surely, that's a lot of work for such a useless prank. What did they expect you to do? Hand it to Mom as a proof that 'magic' is real? Or just jump on a broom and fly to the Land of Oz? Or – "

"Dud, slow down. I mean, how do we know these are for me, at the first place?"

"They are addressed to you. To your very room, actually."

"They are addressed to our house and to my room, but they are addressed to H.J. Potter."

"Well, your name is Harry, isn't it? And we'd found those letters in Mom's drawer, so we at least know for a fact your Mom called herself Lily Potter and her husband James."

"No, we assume it was my Mom who called herself Lily Potter, because we'd found the letters in your Mom's drawer. Legally, my Mom never got married or gave birth to me. Aunt Petunia had to do a blood test to prove we were related. Yet someone out there is absolutely sure I'm James Potter's rightful offspring."

"Are you trying to tell me the letters are from your dad?"

"Not necessarily. They might be from those Dumbledore and McGonagall, or whatever they call themselves. But the point is, they expect me to talk to them because of who my father was."

"And who they think your father was? A "witch"? That doesn't make sense, Harry, that kind of stories are for five-year-olds. And you've been top of the class in math and science all your life, you wouldn't have believed even then."

"Perhaps they don't know."

"Don't know what? That you're not five?"

"Or that I have it for math and science. The smallest bedroom has been mine since I came to live with you. Perhaps that's all they know. Perhaps they really left me on the doorstep, like old Mrs. Barnes used to say – "

"Stop it! Mom and Dad told you they wouldn't have kept you, if they didn't want to."

"Yeah. But they never said I was not. Left on the doorstep, I mean."

"What does it matter?"  
>"Not much. Unless my father is not dead."<p>

"Suppose he is not – or even if he is, those freaks just dropped you at some strangers' and cared so little they seemed to have forgotten how long ago it was and wouldn't be bothered to actually face you. What do they want with you now?"

Harry contemplated the mysterious letters silently for a few minutes.

"You know what? I don't particularly want to find out!"

He dug into his bag for a red felt-tip pen, picked one of the envelopes, crossed out the address, wrote "H.J. POTTER DOES NOT LIVE HERE" in bold letters underneath, and offered it to the owl, who snatched the letter from his hand and promptly took off. Then he sent Dudley to borrow a lighter from a teenager smoking at the corner, made sure no one was watching and set the rest of the letters on fire.

* * *

><p>(1) <em>Harry's still going to a different school, because Dudley is a boxer and he is a nerd. I considered finding an actual school for gifted, but who knows how copyright works in cases like that.<em>


	5. Chapter Three

_**Warning**: Obviously, Hagrid's visit is coming next, and it's not going to be all nice and peachy. But, before sending me flames, re-read the corresponding chapter of "Philosopher's Stone", disregarding what had been told about the Dursleys in the previous three. We have learned they deserve it and much more – Hagrid has not. _

CHAPTER THREE

By 11:50 PM on July, 30 Harry could already say he had had better days, let alone birthdays. First, he was hot. Second, he had to share one of the only two beds with Dudley, whose massive body was now pressing Harry into the dusty plush of the sofa-back. Third, due to the boat rent service having a day off on Monday, they had to get to the island late Sunday, and by now Harry had learned it the hard way that the only exiting thing about the old lighthouse was its being an old lighthouse. Fourth, he had dropped his glasses on the rocky ground first thing the previous morning, and had spent the day alternating between having them hanging awkwardly from his nose held together with sellotape and putting up with his pathetic eyesight. Finally, the storm outside kept him awake, at the same time promising none of his guests (who, admittedly, were more Dudley's friends than his) would make it to the party come morning.

* * *

><p>Dudley had chosen to have a trip to the zoo on his birthday, which had been real fun, even though Harry had got a fleeting impression that a huge boa right at the entrance to the terrarium had tried to draw his attention. But it had been Dudley's birthday, and Dudley wasn't particularly fond of reptiles, so hippos it had been.<p>

Harry, on the other hand, had always been fascinated by snakes (disturbing impressions aside). He should have probably asked for a trip to the terrarium on his own birthday. But somewhere in the middle of May he had discovered Raphael Sabatini and made the elder Dursleys so sick of his talks about ships and pirates that they had agreed to hold his birthday party at the old lighthouse just to shut him up. By now "Captain Blood" had been read, re-read and forgotten, and Harry's nightstand was permanently occupied by "The Lord of the Rings" (which aunt Petunia tolerated if not approved of, as long as Harry claimed to be captivated by a curious experiment in historical modeling, not by the concept of elves and, god forbid, wizards existing somewhere on Earth – even Middle Earth), but the trip to the lighthouse stood. Call it a premonition, but Harry wouldn't put it past Albus Dumbledore to give him a nasty birthday surprise, and thus preferred to spend the day away from home if he had a chance.

* * *

><p>The hideous bright plastic watch Dudley was very fond of (for reasons unknown to Harry, who secretly believed Marge Dursley had hard time remembering her nephew's exact age, size and sometimes even sex when choosing his Christmas presents) gave a soft beep and displayed four messy zeros on its irregular-shaped dial. Harry disentangled one hand from his thick sleeping bag and shoved his bony elbow to his cousin's broad chest: "Hey, Big D, guess what, I'm eleven now". "Met too, so what?", Dudley murmured sleepily and thankfully turned on his side, giving Harry some space to breathe. His relief was short-lived, however, as at the next moment a loud "Boom" resounded through the room. Harry tensed in his stuffy nest of padding polyester and pricked his ears.<p>

"Where's the cannon?" Dudley said stupidly, without opening his eyes.

Boom.

"Right here, Dud, wake up!" Harry whispered urgently. Dudley only groaned.

Boom, boom, boom. Someone out there was getting impatient.

"Come on, Big D, I'm not kidding!" This time Dudley didn't react at all.

With the final "BOOM" which literally made the frail walls of the lighthouse shake, the front door was swung off its hinges and landed dangerously close to the sofa, admitting the cold wet air and the salty smell of raging waves along with the largest man Harry had ever seen. The stranger's face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little.

Having given his cousin's unresponsive form the last useless shake Harry finally gave in to his basic instinct and dove behind the sofa just as the giant turned around – to face the gun Harry hadn't even known they owned.

"Who the hell are you?" Mr. Dursley demanded with as much menace as he could master under the circumstances.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," the stranger answered, waving his huge hand as if to repel an annoying insect. Uncle Vernon took a few involuntary steps back, but regained his equilibrium quickly.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he exclaimed. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant, taking one more step towards the sofa.

"Stop!" Uncle Vernon shouted, and when the giant still paid him no attention, pulled the trigger.

The giant gave the bullet a startled glare and it stopped mid-air and fell on the floor.

"There yeh have it, Dursley. Lucky yern't worth goin' t'Azkaban. But I'll be damn' if I don't send a Death Eater after yeh." He jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.

"An' here's Harry!" he continued in the general direction of the sofa, where Dudley was now struggling to sit up, not quite awake yet. "Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby. "Yeh look a lot… Er, yeh've got yet mom's eyes."

"Now that was a bull, if I've ever heard one," Harry mused still crouching behind the sofa, recognizing a clumsy attempt to gain trust for what it was. Both Dudley's and Aunt Petunia's eyes were of watery greenish-grey colour far cry from Harry's and correspondingly Lily's vibrant emerald. Well, at least the stranger didn't comment on "his" looks: Harry knew for a fact that apart from the colorings he took after his mother, Dudley looked exactly like Uncle Vernon's photo at the same age.

Meanwhile, the giant was digging through the huge pockets of his untidy coat.

"Yeh see, Harry, we knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters, an' the school sent me to dee-liver it meself… "

"So, you're from the academy?" Dudley finally offered.

"Course not. I'm from Hogwarts."

"Then you must've got it wrong. Harry's going to Stonewall."

"Harry Potter's not goin' to Hogwarts? Yer mad. Yer name's been down ever since y'were born. Yer off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Yer parenst learned all they knew there, and they wouldn't see yer nowhere else. Yeh''ll be with youngsters of yer own sort, fer a change, an' yeh'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbledore. An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter. It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow."

Anti-terroristic drills (No contradicting) kicking in, Dudley took the familiar letter and started reading aloud as slowly as possible. Behind the sofa Harry could almost hear wheels spinning in his own head: he would have to do something – and really soon.

Albus Dumbledore's messenger didn't seem the brightest crayon in the box, and might very well never figure out he wasn't actually talking to Harry. He didn't carry a weapon and therefore probably didn't mean physical harm, but his own strength was obviously enough to cause such without meaning. And discovering his delusion would certainly make him angry. Dudley was a pre-teen boxing champion who couldn't think ahead to save his life. Having deemed all the drill instructions not-working he would try to fight, never mind he barely reached the giant's ankles. Uncle Vernon might have no choice but to fight. Were it Harry, he might have done the sensible thing, but there was no way he would let his son go with the monster; and he wouldn't just hand Harry to the monster either.

Harry inopportunely remembered that non-comforting mantra his unsuccessful child's psychologist had used to ease his guilt over his parent's death: "the man who came to kill your family was big and dangerous, and there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop him": once again a big and dangerous man came after his family, because someone out there apparently suddenly realised he was the son of two people he couldn't even remember.

By the time the letter came to an end, Harry was boiling with desperate anger; Dudley finally lost his patience as well.

"Excuse me," he snapped, "but it's the same load of crap. I'm not five and there is no such thing as magic. So what exactly do you want from us?"

Apparently, it was a very wrong thing to say.

"Dursley," the giant roared, reaching for Uncle Vernon's collar with his enormous hand, "You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"

Uncle Vernon's ace was turning purple from helpless fury and lack of oxygen. To hell with logic, caution and guilt-induced "saving-people-thing" – Harry just couldn't take it anymore.

"Shut up", he shrieked, jumping in front of the giant, "just shut up! Both you and your dear Dumbledore are sadistic bastards who left me outside, at night, in November, probably counting on 'magic' to keep pneumonia away. And if you think that now I'll rush to the middle of nowhere to let some old coot teach me tricks like a damn circus monkey, you're stupid bastards as well. You may tell 'Headmaster Dumbledore' Harry Potter doesn't even exist! And Harry Evans is proud to be accepted to Stonewall Academy. And Now. Get. Out."

The door fell out of the doorway again, distracting the giant enough to let go of Uncle Vernon's collar. The next thing he knew, he was thrown outside and landed into a huge muddy puddle, as the door slammed back at place.

Feeling the shock radiating surprisingly not so much from the giant, as from his deadly-pale aunt, staring at him silently from the upper step, Harry took a deep breath and did his best to control the feeling of power surging through his veins like fire through dry wood.

"Well," he murmured pensively, meeting her wide unblinking eyes, "I take it magic IS real, after all?"


	6. AN

**A/N**

_Wanna know what happened next? Well, so do I, but, frankly, I don't have a slightest idea. So anyone who wishes to adopt the story may have it, for all it's worth. Because, sadly, I won't be able to continue, at least without your substantial input._

_So if you want the next chapter from me, let's do some thinking together first:_

_- Should Harry go to Hogwarts?_

_- If not, how should he bring his new-found magic under control?_

_- Will he have to do it (whatever "it" is) on his own? or should he risk trusting Dumbledore? or should the Dursleys look into workaround ways of contacting the Wizarding world? or should they get help from unexpected source?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>PS<strong>. And, just so you know:_

_= I don't particularly like Dumbledore, Sirius or the Weasleys, I believe expecting a child to win a war single-handedly is unfair, and I am disturbed by "Gryffindors are born good, Slitherins are born bad" approach._

_= I never got to read Book 7, because I had been severely disappointed by Book 6, ergo, if we ever get that far, that will be complete AU since OotP, probably earlier, and we will never ever have that pathetic Snape/Lily love story! Dixi._


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